Not So Close

For Chileans it was the choice of a President; for the hemisphere it was the choice of an anti-Axis foreign policy.

For a while it looked as if Chile's Presidential election this week would be close. Arrogant, handsome General Carlos Ibanez del Campo, once his nation's "strong man," was backed by the rightist Conservative and Liberal Parties, the small but noisy pro-Nazi Popular Socialist Vanguard. Smooth, greying Juan Antonio Rios, veteran Radical Party politico, was backed by the middle-to-left Popular Front, fast recovering from its sickness following the death of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda last November.

A few nights before the election Ibanez supporters put on an enthusiastic but disorganized demonstration in a Santiago public square. Two nights later at least 30,000 Rios partisans marched in superb order into the Plaza Bulnes, carrying such anti-Ibanez slogans as BLOCKHEAD, RETURN TO BERLIN and LET'S TURN HIM OVER TO JAPAN.

Election day was unusually orderly. But during the quiet the Popular Front, the mining, industrial and farm workers who did not like the dictatorial smell of General Ibanez, rolled up a whacking majority of 55,000 (out of 460,000) votes for Juan Antonio Rios.

With this smashing victory, it seemed certain that the new President would press for breaking relations with the Axis. The day before the election it was reported that Chile's Foreign Minister Juan Bautista Rossetti, sensing which way the Chilean wind was blowing, had the same idea in mind.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.